Lisa Marie Presley spoke about how nobody had any control over her when she was a child and she kept tabs on the Memphis Mafia.
Being the sole heir and only child of Elvis Presley might seem like a wish come true for some folks but for Lisa Marie Presley, 53, that was her reality. The 53-year-old singer-songwriter followed in her father's footsteps and became a musician, but when she was growing up, there was another role she had donned. In Elvis by the Presleys: Intimate Stories from Priscilla Presley, Lisa Marie Presley, and Other Family Members, the King's daughter spoke about her childhood and described herself as a "holy terror."
Being Presley's daughter came with perks for Lisa, and that included having the same sense of adventure as him. She was a wild one right from childhood and nobody could tell her what to do, as per CheatSheet.
"I don’t think anyone really had any control over me," Lisa said. "They all tried but no one succeeded…I was a holy terror," she added. She was as much the queen of Graceland as her father was the king.
Presley used to sleep in most mornings and that gave her the freedom to run the household, including threatening the cook to give her chocolate cake or get fired. As a child, she was so naughty she would toss pool cues and balls in the basement just to cause chaos. She was so notorious that Patsy Presley, Elvis’s secretary and first cousin, agrees with her self-appraisal.
"I love her like my own, but as a child, Lisa Marie was a little devil… For a long time, we wondered who was running Graceland, Elvis or Lisa," said Patsy in Elvis by the Presleys. The former secretary also added Lisa was just like her father. She was "outspoken" and "a natural rebel."
Lisa was so in control of Graceland that she even had members of Elvis’s entourage, the Memphis Mafia, under her thumb. She was an observant child and she kept the Memphis Mafia on their toes by keeping tabs on them. She was aware when those in the entourage were cheating on their wives, and she would use it to her advantage.
Since they were close to the family, she knew their wives and families. "I’d see the guys in my father’s entourage with women on their laps who were not their wives," Lisa revealed. "I’d threaten to fire them or tell their wives if they didn’t do whatever I said," she added.
Lisa didn't have the most stable home while she was growing up. Her father was always touring or battling his addictions. In fact, her father wanted to leave her mom, Priscilla, even before she was born, according to CheatSheet. Priscilla wrote in her book Elvis and Me that her husband once called her to his office and said, "Cilla, I have to have time to think. Things just aren’t going right. It’ll be good for the two of us to take a little time off, like a trial separation. Be apart from one another for a while."
She was seven months pregnant at the time and just "wanted to die." However, she didn't show him how devastated she was at him asking for a "break." She wrote, "I looked at him in silence, feeling a new strength. If he excluded me at this time, then he didn’t deserve me at all. I stood up and said, ‘You’ve got it. Just tell me when to leave.'"
The separation didn't last long and in two days, he tried to smooth things over by buying her a gift. "The idea of a trial separation was never mentioned again,” she wrote. “We both acted as if nothing had been said," she said. However, there were always issues in their marriage that culminated in divorce eventually.
Priscilla had walked out in 1972 and in the settlement, they decided to share custody of their daughter. Presley's ex-wife also received a cash payment of $725,000, five percent of Elvis’ publishing companies, and half of what was earned through selling their home in Beverly Hills, according to Express UK. She further received spousal and child support.
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Cover image source: Getty Images | Photo by (L)Keystone (R) Kevin Winter
